Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
C O V E R –– Gillette Safety Razor Company in 1926, from “The
Gillette Company: 1901 - 1976.” Copyright 1977. Photo courtesy
of The Gillette Company.
I N S I D E –– Amy Benson describes the challenges of handling
digital material at the Schlesinger Library (Archival Insight,
page 4) while Dory Codington reports on her adventures as the
lone arranger of the Gillette Corporate Archives (Around &
About, page 22).
2
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Table of Contents
WPI Archives and Special Collections
Gordon Library
100 Institute Road • Worcester, MA 01609
<www.newenglandarchivists.org>
NEA Executive Board
President:
President-Elect:
Past President:
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Representatives-at-Large:
Clerk:
PR Coordinators:
Development Coordinator:
Newsletter Editors:
Web Coordinator:
Kathryn Hammond Baker
Peter Carini
Chris Burns
Danielle Kovacs
Nova M. Seals
Ellen Doon
Melissa Watterworth
Karen Adler Abramson
Joan Gearin
Jean Nielsen Berry
Tracy Messer
Tara Hurt
Jane Ward
Cynthia Harbeson
Juliana Kuipers
Stephanie Schneider
Lacy Schutz
Krista Ferrante
Membership in New England Archivists, Inc. is open to all.
From the Editors .................................................................
3
Archival Insight ...................................................................
4
Adventures of a Digital Archivist ..............................
4
Inside NEA ............................................................................
7
From the President.........................................................
7
Executive Board Meeting Report................................
8
Officers’ Reports ........................................................
8
Meetings ......................................................................
8
Committee Reports ..................................................
8
New Members ............................................................ 10
Dues of $30/year ($40 for institutions) should be sent to: Rodney
Obien, WPI Archives and Special Collections, Gordon Library, 100
Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609.
NEA By-Laws ........................................................................ 10
Notices of archival events should be sent to: Stephanie Schneider
at <[email protected]>.
Internet Tidbits ................................................................... 11
The NEA Newsletter is published quarterly in January, April, July
and October. The contents of the Newsletter may be reproduced in
whole or in part provided that credit is given.
Reviews ................................................................................... 12
Articles and News of interest to archivists, historical society members, historians, and other NEA members should be sent to:
Stephanie Schneider at <[email protected]> or to NEA Newsletter
Editors, c/o WPI Archives and Special Collections, Gordon Library,
100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609.
Contributions to the NEA Web site should be sent to:
<[email protected]>.
Deadlines for submitting materials are:
November 15 for January issue February 10 for April issue
May 15 for July issue
August 15 for October issue
Advertising Policy:
There will be no fee to list position openings. Advertisements for
archival products will be accepted as space permits. Advertising
should be submitted to Jane Ward, (978) 459-2129 or <jane.ward@
comcast.net>.
Rates: Full page: $125; half page: $75; quarter page: $40. Payment is
requested at the time the ad is submitted. All checks should be
made payable to New England Archivists.
News and Notes .................................................................... 16
Connecticut ..................................................................... 16
Massachusetts ................................................................. 16
Vermont ............................................................................ 19
Outside New England ................................................... 20
Around & About ................................................................... 24
History Comes to Me in Boxes: The Story of the
Gillette Corporate Archive .......................................... 24
Invitations for Award Nominations ............................. 26
Calendar .................................................................................. 27
Newsletter design by Culp Design <www.culpdesign.com>
People ....................................................................................... 27
3
Volume 36, Number 2
From the Editors
- Cynthia Harbeson
H
opefully, this issue finds you all back at work after an
informative and fun NEA meeting in Boston! I was
particularly looking forward to attending this meeting
because I work with researchers almost daily. One of the
hardest aspects of dealing with researchers is balancing
preservation and access. In From the President, which discusses the closure of the Rose Art Museum, Kathryn
Hammond Baker recognizes this issue as one of many hard
questions presently arising as a result of this troubled economic time.
It is certainly a challenging time, but challenge is a
word that never leaves an archivist’s vocabulary. Amy
Benson, Librarian/Archivist for Digital initiatives at the
Schlesinger Library, writes about the challenges she faced
(and overcame) in managing a digital conversion and management project.
Dory Codington also had to confront numerous challenges as she worked to process the archives of the Gillette
•
April 2009
Company. She had the unique challenge of dealing
with traditional archival material as well as artifacts
such as razors and shaving cream. In her article, Dory
describes how she took stacks of unprocessed boxes and
created an archive.
In Internet Tidbits, Susan Martin spotlights the new
online exhibit, “The Life and Work of Edward R. Murrow,”
created by Tufts University, and “Massachusetts Maps,” the
latest digital resource created by the Massachusetts
Historical Society. Both projects are worth exploring and
you will certainly be encouraged to do so after reading
Susan’s descriptions.
Finally, the Newsletter Committee would like to welcome its newest member, Juliana Kuipers from the Harvard
University Archives, who takes over for Susan Earle as
Reviews Editor. On behalf of the entire committee, I would
like to thank Susan for all of her hard work and dedication
over the past few years.
Look for the newsletter again in July when those of
you who weren’t able to attend the Spring Meeting will get
to read all about it!
Apply for the Haas Award
Applications are due May 1, 2009
The Richard L. Haas Memorial Award is sponsored jointly by New England Archivists and the Boston Chapter of
the Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA). The purpose of the award is to promote better
understanding between the archival and records management professions. The award for 2009 is $1,000.
The award is given to an individual who proposes a project that promotes increased cooperation, understanding,
and knowledge between the archival and records management professions. Traditional examples of proposals
include attendance at seminars or workshops, preparing articles of interest to both professions, and research projects. The award is not limited to these suggestions. This explanation is somewhat ambiguous in the hope that
applicants will be creative with their proposals. Preference, however, will be given to those that integrate records
management and archival issues.
The award is not limited to members of NEA or ARMA. Anyone, especially students and educators, is encouraged
to apply. The successful candidate has up to one year to use the award. The award recipient must provide a financial report to the Haas Award Committee, and is also expected to write an article for publication in the ARMA and
NEA newsletters.
For details, see the NEA Web site at www.newenglandarchivists.org or contact: Judy Huenneke, Chair, NEA Haas
Award Committee, The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, 200 Massachusetts Avenue,
Boston, MA 02115, (617) 450-7111, <[email protected]>.
4
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Archival Insight
Adventures of a Digital Archivist
Amy Benson, Librarian/Archivist for Digital Initiatives, Schlesinger Library
I
was hired at Schlesinger Library in October 2007 to take on the position of Librarian/Archivist for Digital Initiatives. The job was new, and challenges awaited me on many fronts. I had spent years studying the theory and best
practices behind digital collection building and now it was time to put my knowledge to the test. In a world where
all things are digital, it quickly became clear that my work would reach every department of the Library. I had to find
workable solutions for the influx of digital content coming into the Library from all sides. I was fortunate not to have to
go it alone. Schlesinger Library staff were willing and able to assist me in my efforts. Their knowledge of the library, its
collections and history, helped me understand what it would take to get the job done.
My campaign progressed along three main fronts: the
digital conversion of existing analog collections; management of incoming digital collections; and the collection of
born-digital content from the Web.
I. Converting analog collections to digital.
One of my first priorities was to get up to speed on a
digital conversion project that the Schlesinger Library had
undertaken in partnership with the British publisher
Adam Matthew. Adam Matthew offers numerous online
teaching and research resources built around libraries’
special collections. Schlesinger staff identified large pockets of travel-related materials in the archives - diaries and
letters written by 19th-and 20th century American women
that describe journeys across every continent by foot,
train, car, and ship. Adam Matthew selected these travel
writings for digitization and will add indexing, scholarly
essays, and other contextual resources. The end product
will be made available for purchase from Adam Matthew
in a digital collection titled, “Travel Writing, Spectacle,
and World History.”
The selected materials came from fifty separate collections. In some cases, an entire collection was chosen; in
others, only a single folder or chapter of a memoir was relevant to the theme. The project did not include the creation of new descriptions or finding aids, so the folder or
single volume was the smallest unit of digitization. Sticking
to this guideline meant that it would be possible to link the
newly created digital files with appropriate descriptive
sources such as a catalog record, or finding aid, without
creating new metadata.
The project had an ambitious timeline. The final product would consist of roughly 25,000 scanned images, to be
delivered in time for Adam Matthew to prepare and launch
the digital resource by the end of 2009. The collections had
to be recalled from the stacks, assessed for preservation
issues, prepped for digitization, sorted by digitization
workflow, and often re-housed before being transported to
our digitization partner.
I was lucky to be able to work with Harvard’s own
Digital Imaging Group (DIG) on this project. The DIG has
excellent facilities and has worked with the special collections of many Harvard libraries. They already had experience working with Schlesinger’s collections in the Open
Collections Program <http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/>. They
were able to offer practical assistance with logistics such
as batch preparation, file naming, and deposits of the completed images into the Digital Repository Service (DRS).
Together, the DIG staff and I also tackled the often thorny
question of just what constitutes a digital object. In some
cases, the physical items themselves and past processing
decisions were at odds with what constituted an intellectual unit. The ability to link to digital objects from multiple
locations in the various systems we use often made decisions easier.
One key feature to the success of the project was the
creation of a database which listed and tracked all items to
be digitized. It was kept scrupulously up to date so that
public services staff, or anyone in the Library, could locate
any item in the project. While there was a certain amount
of upheaval due to parts of collections going in and out of
the Library, we were able to accommodate several refer-
5
Volume 36, Number 2
ence requests for the travel diary collections in the midst
of the project, in one case even retrieving the collection
temporarily from the DIG to assist a researcher who was in
town for only two days. The project is on schedule and we
expect to have the digitization completed by September
2009. Additional diaries may be added to the resource in a
second phase.
II. Incoming Digital Content / Electronic Records
As we worked to create new digital content from our
analog collections, Schlesinger was also receiving incoming collections containing digital content on a regular
basis. Collections included all kinds of electronic files from
Excel spreadsheets to HTML files for Web sites. The first
concern upon receiving digital materials is how best to
store them. As mentioned above, Harvard University does
have a Digital Repository, but it is designed for materials
that are intended to be a permanent part of a Library’s collection. Currently, there is no provision for temporary or
short-term storage of unprocessed digital files or collections. Much of the digital material that Schlesinger receives
comes as part of collections that may not be processed
immediately. While Schlesinger could keep the files on
original media until such time as a collection is processed,
there is an element of risk in waiting, which needs to be
evaluated based on the amount of data, its value, the complexity of the content, and its storage medium. Storage
media become obsolete when the technologies used to
access them are no longer readily available. In today’s
world, it is difficult to find a computer that can read 5.25”
diskettes anywhere but on eBay. Machines with drives for
3.5” diskettes are still available, but are disappearing rapidly. The problem is exacerbated when the full range of
digital storage media is considered. Disks created on Macs,
Zip disks, Sony MiniDiscs – all require special equipment
to access the files stored on them.
At Schlesinger, our immediate concern is to preserve
the digital content until it can be assessed along with the
entire collection. Our current policy is to copy incoming
digital files to a temporary networked storage location
Visit the NEA online at:
<www.newenglandarchivists.org>
•
April 2009
until such time as the collection they belong to can be fully
processed. At that time, the materials will be fully described
and the files can be moved to the DRS for permanent
retention.
III. WAX
A third frontier of digital collection building was also
underway when I arrived at Schlesinger. The WAX (Web
ArXiving) project began as a pilot in July 2006 to investigate the capture and archiving of Web resources. As online
communication increasingly takes the place of traditional
analog methods, collection managers have grown increasingly concerned about potential gaps in the documentation
of our cultural heritage. Where people once wrote in
diaries, many now blog. Web sites have supplanted many
forms of printed material generated by organizations
whose papers we collect. In this increasingly digital world,
collection managers must continue to acquire the content
that they have always collected regardless of format.
The goal of the WAX pilot was to understand the process required for the long-term archiving of Web content,
including selection, capture, description, and management. Schlesinger was one of three partner libraries in the
pilot. The University Library’s Office for Information
Systems (OIS) concentrated on the necessary technical
infrastructure. They built the WAX system using several
open source tools developed by the Internet Archive and
other International Internet Preservation Consortium
(IIPC) members. Schlesinger Library, the Harvard
University Archives, and the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute
of Japanese Studies each fielded a single collection to provide hands-on experience with every step of the process.
Schlesinger Library chose to collect women’s voices as
expressed through their blogs. The content mirrored collections we had traditionally collected in paper format. It
was also felt that blogs might provide a window for future
research into how women used this new technology in the
early 21st century.
Schlesinger staff chose just over thirty blogs for the
pilot, spanning a broad spectrum of women from conservative to liberal, and from all walks of life. When faced
with content on the Web, Archivists find themselves with
an unusual problem – choice. Unlike those rare collections
from the past which managed to survive trash heaps, fires,
6
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
and pests, there is abundant material available online.
While there is no cost for the content itself, other factors
such as quality of content along with description, storage,
and long-term maintenance costs are significant enough to
require some careful thought before permanently adding
Web resources to the collection.
Questions about scope and frequency were found to
have a considerable impact on collection decisions. We had
to decide whether to capture only the content created by
“our” blogger, or to include content to which our blogger
linked and which she may have commented on in a posting. Including a blog’s archives in a harvest made it possible to reduce the frequency of capture, saving storage
without reducing access to valuable content. We were able
to explore these questions and many others in our work on
the pilot.
Although improvements to the technology occurred
regularly, there are still some types of functionality found on
Web sites that may not be captured or may not display properly in the archived version of the sites. It was necessary to
review each blog harvest to determine if the capture displays
sufficient functionality and quality to retain its research or
historical value. In addition to monitoring the functionality
of the blogs and their many widgets, the content has to be
continually reviewed for cases in which a blogger shifts
focus, presentation, or stops writing altogether.
The WAX crawler leaves a “calling card” after each
crawl to let Web site managers know that it has visited.
The WAX Web site includes clear instructions on how a
site owner can prevent his or her site from being crawled.
As part of the pilot we decided to take an extra step and
contact the blog owners to seek their permission. In general, we found that most people were pleased to have their
site included in our project.
It’s Your Newsletter: Contribute!
The NEA Newsletter always needs news from your
archives and other archives in New England, about
NEA members, and about upcoming events. We also
need people to write reviews, long articles, and session reports for NEA meetings. If you have any ideas
for articles, etc., please contact an editor.
WAX transitioned from pilot project to production
system on February 4, 2009 <http://wax.lib.harvard.edu>.
As the system grows, we hope to expand the range and
quantity of content we collect from the Web. Although
much of the content we collect now will be available on the
live Web for the foreseeable future, in the long-term, these
materials could easily disappear. The material we choose
to collect represents material that we feel belongs as a permanent part of the Schlesinger Library, material that we
want to be able to make available to researchers of the
future along with our analog materials.
Digital content in our collections is here to stay, and, I
think it’s safe to say, its presence will continue to expand.
As we become comfortable managing digital images and
PDFs, new types of content are waiting in the wings to
challenge us. Harvard University has recently embarked
on a project to investigate the long-term retention of
e-mail. Future challenges include social networking sites
such as Facebook and virtual worlds like Second Life. The
adventure continues. Stay tuned… .
7
Volume 36, Number 2
Inside NEA
FROM THE PRESIDENT
- Kathryn Hammond Baker
•
April 2009
Second, how can we balance the interests involved in
stewarding collections? The goals of the donor, curator,
institution, and user may conflict; where does our loyalty
lie: to the donor, the funding organization, the users that
realize the value of the materials, or to the materials themselves? Under what circumstances is deaccession appropriate, even desirable?
A Rose by Any Other Name Is… Us?
O
n January 26, 2009, the Board of
Trustees of Brandeis University
voted to close the university’s renowned
48-year-old cultural icon, the Rose Art
Museum. “Today’s decision will set in
motion a long-term plan to sell the art
collection and convert the professional
art facility to a teaching, studio, and
gallery space for undergraduate and graduate students and
faculty,” said Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz. The
president’s statement referred to the difficult economic
times and the university’s need to “initiate a strategy to
replenish our financial assets.”
The response was swift. In the ten days following the
announcement, 7,226 people, many from outside the
Brandeis community, joined a Facebook group that brainstormed ways to “Save the Rose Art Museum.” Dozens of
faculty members signed a protest letter. Major media,
including the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Time, and
The New York Times, published hundreds of editorials and
letters. Students held a ‘funeral march.’ The closure threat
was covered on German TV. The International Council of
Museums, Committee for Museums and Collections of
Contemporary Art carried the news on its home page. The
American Association of Museums condemned the Brandeis
action saying, “Museums hold collections in the public
trust. These collections are a part of our common heritage
and belong, in a moral sense, to all of us. It is the museum’s
job to preserve them for future generations.”
It’s no surprise that the Rose closure has raised many
hard questions for the archival community. First, what is
the value of archives (or art or other cultural property) in
our communities? In education? In society? How do we—
and our funders and users— articulate that value? How do
we align our mission and activities with those responses?
Third, are we prepared to advocate for our collections
and programs? Would the closing of our doors provoke an
outcry? Who will advocate for us?
“Seeing the art in person really cements in my mind
that these works were made in real time by real people,” a
student at the Rose ‘funeral march’ reported to a local newspaper. “They are not just detached images in a book.”
Archives, too, can inspire this personal connection, the
transcendent moment when the materials become more
than two-dimensional to the user, when the hand of the
creator reaches beyond the surface of the document and
touches another human.
But those responding to the Rose announcement are
not solely, or even largely, museum visitors; with an annual
gatecount of 12,000 to 15,000 people, it would appear that
the Rose’s constituent base is small. On the contrary, its
advocates value the Rose and what it represents even
though they are not defined as “users.” How can we capture
and communicate the value of our mission and collections
to both users and to people beyond the clients we serve?
In the difficult days ahead, many other questions will
arise. For some of us, the Rose closure hits painfully close to
home. For all of us, the Rose closure is a thought-provoking
call to action.
At the time of this writing, President Reinharz has
apologized for his mishandling of the Rose announcement.
He has assured the community that only a limited number
of works will be sold and that the public will still be permitted some access. It isn’t clear what will happen to the
museum and its collection. In a way, this story—and our
story—is just beginning.
8
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING REPORT
- Danielle Kovacs
The business handled at the January
23, 2009 meeting of the Executive
Board is summarized below. All
VOTING is in bold. Complete minutes
are available on the NEA Web site or
from the secretary.
The meeting was called to order at
10:39 a.m. by Kathryn Hammond Baker. Minutes from the
November 14, 2008 Board Meeting were presented and two
revisions were suggested. All members voted to accept
the November 14, 2008 Board Meeting minutes as
amended.
OFFICERS’ REPORTS
President
Kathryn Hammond Baker recommended the Board continue to use the Clerk’s address for state legal and tax filings and that volunteers continue to use their addresses for
vendors and contracts. It was agreed that this procedure
should be formalized so that future Boards can follow the
same practice. All members voted in favor of retaining
the address of the clerk for legal and fiscal filings and
using the addresses of volunteers for the vendors or
contracts they oversee.
Vice President
The Program Committee for the Fall 2009 meeting at UMass
Boston and the Local Arrangements Committee for the
Spring 2010 at UMass Amherst were approved. All members voted to appoint Tom Blake, Boston Public Library;
Sally Fellows, City of Manchester, NH; Danielle Kovacs,
UMass Amherst and Local Arrangements Liaison;
Valerie Love, UConn; and Tom Wharton, Phillips Exeter
to the Spring 2010 Program Committee.
Immediate Past President
The nomination process for upcoming Board elections was
completed, the information about candidates is on the Web
site, and the ballots will be mailed out soon. There were no
nominations for the Distinguished Service and Archival
Advocacy awards. An announcement about both awards
will go into the April newsletter with the hope of attracting
nominees for the Fall meeting. Chris Burns will invite the
newly elected members of the Board to an orientation at
the Spring 2009 meeting.
Treasurer
Nova Seals announced that the Fall 2008 NEA meeting was
very successful. The remaining financial statements for the
2008 calendar year indicate that NEA is financially sound.
Nova also presented her proposal for position of Registrar,
a position to be appointed by the Board for a term length of
three years. The individual who fills the position will work
with the treasurer and membership secretary to track
meeting registrations and memberships initiated or
renewed in the online environment. The Board was in
favor of creating such a position, but recommended changing the title to Registration Coordinator so it would not be
confused with workshop registrars. All members voted to
accept the job description with revisions for the
Registration Coordinator position, which will be
appointed by the Board prior to the registration period
for the Fall 2009 meeting.
MEETINGS
Spring 2009
The Local Arrangements Committee submitted their budget for the upcoming meeting in March. They do not expect
to exceed the budget, rather they expect a surplus after all
fees are paid. The meeting brochure was completed and
will be mailed out to members soon. All members voted
to set the Spring 2009 meeting fees at $50 for NEA
members, $80 for nonmembers, and $25 for students.
The Program Committee is currently reviewing the program. When proofreading is completed it will be added to
the Web site and the meeting will be publicized.
Fall 2009
The Local Arrangements Committee signed a contract
with UMass Boston to secure rooms for the meeting itself,
and Jane Ward will sign a contract with the JFK Library to
secure a space for the Friday afternoon reception.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Education Committee
Jaimie Quaglino recommended that the Education
Committee be restructured in order to accommodate the
work involved in organizing and offering stand-alone
9
Volume 36, Number 2
workshops. Some suggestions included adding additional
members to the committee, adding a co-chair, or adding a
stand-alone workshop coordinator. A lengthy discussion
about the work that is required to plan stand-alone workshops and about the possibilities for reducing or streamlining the workload followed. Jaimie decided that she would
consider the Board’s feedback and come up with a proposal
to present to the Board at the next meeting in March. She
would also like to survey the membership to see what kind
of workshops they want in the future.
A revised job description for the program and local arrangements committees was presented. The proposed revisions
include language that calls for coordination between these
two committees and the Education Committee. Since
other job descriptions should be reviewed and revised as
well, Kathryn asked for a group of volunteers to go over all
of the job descriptions and bring the revisions to the next
Board meeting.
Membership Committee
Maria Bernier presented a proposal for a new membership
category for students with a membership fee at 50% of the
individual membership dues. Students will continue to
receive 50% off registration fees and they will have all the
same benefits of individual membership except students
cannot hold elected office. Since the NEA by-laws state
that there are only two categories of membership, NEA
members must vote on the proposed change to the by-laws
to include a third category of membership. All members
voted to approve the proposed amendment to the NEA
by-laws to be voted on by the membership at the annual business meeting on March 28, 2009.
Focus groups will be conducted during summer 2009 for
members who did not renew their membership. The focus
groups will seek to determine why these former members
did not renew and how NEA can meet their needs in the
future. There will be two focus groups planned for the
summer: one located in the southern New Hampshire/
Vermont area and the other in Connecticut.
Web Committee
The web committee continues to work on moving the Web
site from skyBuilders to a new hosting site. A contract has
been signed with a contractor from Appleseed, Inc. who
will evaluate and select a new hosting service and CMS,
and then move NEA content to the new service. After a
•
April 2009
new hosting site and a CMS are selected and implemented,
the next step will be to define clear benchmarks for the site
along with a timeline for completing specific activities. The
entire process could run into the next fiscal year. The initial
site, however, should be moved by March 2009.
New Business
The Board reviewed Melissa Watterworth’s report tracking
the status of the planning action points identified on May
25, 2005. Many items were already addressed by the Board
since the list was compiled; a few outstanding items include
the creation of a web-accessible Board manual and the next
phase of long-term planning for NEA.
The NEA Newsletter is seeking submissions from
repositories in New England for back cover pictorial
features in This Season in New England History. Send
submissions in JPG or TIFF format, along with a
caption detailing the subject of the photograph, to:
<[email protected]>. Photographs must be
scanned at 600 dpi or better.
10
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Sara Goldberg
Please visit us online at
www.newenglandarchivists.org
for more information about becoming a member of NEA
New Members
Vivien Goldman
Digital Commonwealth
- Rodney Obien
Denise Anderson
Katie Chase
State Library of
Massachusetts
Christina Anderson
Robert A. Clemens
Karen S. Beck
Boston College Law
Library
Joyce Clifford
Individual
Melissa Goldberg
Bard College
Hanna Clutterbuck
Northeastern University
Jodi Goodman
URI / Simmons College
Joey Grant
Simmons College
Margaret Grant
Bard College
Paige Griffith
New York University
Andrea Benefiel
Simmons College
Lee S. Cook
Andrew Hempe
JFK Library
Andrea Berger
SCSU
Anna Cook
Simmons College
Elizabeth Henry
Simmons College
Andrea Bernard
Simmons College
Tifenn Judet de la Combe
The French Library
Delana Hirschy
Harvard University
Jessica Bitely
Simmons College
Heather Dean
Yale University
Paul L. Holmer
Cheryl Ann Bliss
Christian de Torres
UMass Boston
Barbara Bouquegneau
The French Library
Amanda Briggs
Simmons College
Jessica Brody
Simmons College
Rachel Bross
Simmons College
Aly Brown
Simmons College
Lee Bryars
JFK Presidential Library
Lindsay Dewar
Simmons College
Katharine Dunn
Simmons College
Jessie Howell
Simmons College
Justine Hyland
Boston College
Kirstin Kay
Simmons College
Shana McKenna
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum
Andrea Medina-Smith
Jewish Women’s Archive
Brenda Mitchell-Powell
Simmons College
Amber Moore
Museum of African
American History
Alina Morris
Jesse Nachem
Simmons College
Nathaniel Otting
Simmons College
Rebecca Parmer
USS Constitution Museum
Margaret Peachy
Harvard Law School
Library
Travis Puller
University of Vermont
Melanie Radik
Simmons College
Steve Robinson
Williston Historical Society
Beth Anne Royer
City of Bridgeport
Stephen Kharfen
Rachel Dwyer
Simmons College
Jeff Eastman
University of Southern
Maine
Todd Falkowski
Simmons College
Cynthia Rufo
Laura Kitchings
Simmons College GSLIS
Emily Rupp
Simmons College
Juliana Kuipers
Harvard University
Archives
Lori Satter
Simmons College
Christa Lemelin
Carol Schulman
Claire Lobdell
Simmons College
Rachel Searcy
JFK Library & Museum
Kelly Shand
Simmons College
Stephanie Call
Simmons College
Christine Fallo
Simmons College/JFK
Library
Christopher Carr
Simmons College
Kelly Francis
JFK Library
Colin B. Lukens
Harvard University
Archives
Laura Cass
Simmons College
Ashley Gaunt
Simmons College
Nicola Mantzaris
Simmons College
Lori Shemanski
Boston College
continued on Page 11
11
Volume 36, Number 2
Internet Tidbits
- Susan Martin
“The Life and Work of Edward R. Murrow,” Tufts University
<http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/murrow/exhibit/index.
html>
A
rchivists at the Tufts University Digital Collections
and Archives have put together a terrific digital exhibit celebrating the life and work of ground-breaking journalist Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965). Included are eight historical essays describing Murrow’s early life, his student
years, and his work with the Institute of International
Education, CBS (in Europe and the U.S.), and the United
States Information Agency. The Web site also highlights
the work of Murrow’s wife, Janet Brewster Murrow (19101998), and the team of foreign correspondents he assembled that came to be known as the “Murrow Boys.” Spanning
several decades and illustrated with a variety of photographs, artifacts, and documents from the Edward R.
Murrow Papers, this Web site is a great resource for enthusiasts of broadcast journalism, politics, and 20th-century
American history.
•
April 2009
Clough (1873-1949). Clough, a Boston draftsman, spent
many years compiling information on Boston property
owners from 17th- and 18th-century town, court, tax,
church, and other records to create a complete topographical history of the city. Though the project was never finished, his maps and other papers are an invaluable resource
for researchers interested in the history of Boston. (For
more information on Clough and his collection, see the
MHS finding aid at <http://www.masshist.org/findingaids/
doc.cfm?fa=fa0276>.)
The Web site offers three options for viewing individual maps: select a specific town or region from an interactive map of Massachusetts and New England; go directly to
Clough’s 1798 atlases of maps and map plates and find specific locations in the index of streets; or browse through an
alphabetical list of towns, counties, regions, and states.
Each map has been beautifully reproduced and includes a
detailed description and overview. Users can view highresolution images or navigate around each map with the
zoom tool.
New Members...from Page 10
The Web site is attractive and easily navigable, and the
text, written by Tufts archivist Susanne Belovari, is detailed
and comprehensive, making good use of original quotations from Murrow and others. The arrangement of the
essays into a timeline helps to put Murrow’s work in historical context, and footnotes, credits, and annotated bibliographies give the Web site a professional polish. Click on
“Research Guide” in the upper right corner to see a brochure and guide for the Edward R. Murrow Papers and a
list of digital resources, including digitized photographs
and audio recordings of Murrow’s program “This I Believe,”
complete with transcripts.
Mikki Simon
MIT
Frederica Templeton
Buff and Burton Academy
Desiree Smelcer
South Hadley Public
Library
Katherine Trovern-Trend
Simmons College
“Massachusetts Maps,” Massachusetts Historical Society
<http://www.masshist.org/online/massmaps/>
Christof Strauss
Schlesinger Library
T
he Massachusetts Historical Society’s latest digital
resource highlights over a hundred rare maps of
Massachusetts, including early manuscript maps of towns
and counties going back to 1637, printed maps of
Massachusetts and Boston, and the maps of Samuel Chester
Abby Love Smith
Simmons College
Evan Usler
URI
Stephanie Spano
Elizabeth Walters
Harvard University Library
Melissa Stearns
Franklin Pierce University
Sandra Waxman
Dedham Historical Society
Tierney Steele
Simmons College
Margaret Welch
Northeast Museum
Services Center
Bryan Sutherland
Harvard Medical School
Christine White
Simmons College
Elizabeth Young
SUNY Oswego
Casey Swan
Jaime Taylor
Simmons College
Janice Zwicker
Waltham Public Library
12
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Reviews
Dearstyne, Bruce W., ed. Leading and managing archives
and records programs: strategies for success. The archivist’s and records manager’s bookshelf. New York: NealSchuman Publishers, Inc., 2008. ISBN: 978-1-55570-615-9
--Victoria K. Andrilenas, Librarian, Northeast Museum
Services Center, National Park Service
B
ruce Dearstyne has edited a series of essays written by
fourteen leaders in archives and records management
in the United States and the United Kingdom. The book is
the third in Neal-Schuman’s Archivist’s and records manager’s bookshelf series. Dearstyne has gathered quite an
impressive group of authors with leadership and management experience in corporate, state, university, and other
non-profit archives; some set up new programs and others
work in established repositories. The breadth of experiences included in the essays means the majority of readers
will find something applicable to their individual situation
whether they are new to a leadership role or a longtime
leader looking for a new solution to a challenge.
Although the authors have different approaches to
leadership, there are themes that appear in several essays.
Articulating a clear mission for the repository and emphasizing its relevance to any parent organization, effective
communication, and flexibility are a few of the skills that
the authors identify as critical leadership skills.
Articulating a clear mission for the repository is a basic
part of archival management; ensuring its relevance to
any parent organization can be more political. A component of ensuring relevance is the need to understand the
field(s) practiced by the parent organization. Eugenia
Brumm argues that managers of corporate archives and
records management programs must also understand the
industry of their parent organization. Peter Emmerson
discusses his experience creating a records management
program for Barclays Bank while the organization was
undergoing a change in focus and objectives. Christine
Ward examines how the New York State Archives illustrated its relevance to the State Education Department,
which is not a traditional parent organization for state
archives, and worked to expand the use of historical
records in the NYS curriculum.
Effective communication is another skill necessary
for successfully leading a program. Carol E.B. Chosky
makes the point that records managers deal with the
majority of staff in the organization, not just archives and
records management staff. Being able to explain the
importance of all staff in executing a successful program
and demonstrating the value of the program to the entire
organization require different communication skills than
managing employees within an archives or records management program.
Flexibility is a valuable skill for any leader but especially now as our profession continues to deal with the
impact of electronic records and changing technology on
the field of archives and records management and in the
current economic climate. Being able to adapt to changes,
such as new technologies, changing standards and requirements, or changing objectives of a parent organization
(even a new parent organization as corporations merge),
is a skill that we should all have. Leaders who can help
employees and programs deal with these changes will
help the field of archives and records management to fare
well in the future. Effective communication skills and the
ability to demonstrate value and relevance to a parent
organization are also valuable leadership skills that can
help leaders and staff deal with change.
Miller, Cynthia Pease, Managing Congressional
Collections. Chicago: Society of American Archivists,
2008. $19.95. ISBN 1-931666-29-6.
--Paige Roberts, Head of Special Collections, State Library
of Massachusetts
T
his book is a remarkably well-written and well-organized manual for archivists responsible for acquiring,
processing, and providing access to the personal papers of
members of Congress. It is a very clear, straightforward,
and specific how-to guide.
According to the book jacket, the author, Cynthia Pease
Miller, was the assistant historian of the House of
Representatives (1983–1999), where she developed retention guidelines for members’ offices and compiled the
award-winning Guide to Research Collections of Former
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives. She has
also served as staff archivist for three senators and a Senate
13
Volume 36, Number 2
committee and is a founding member of the Society of
American Archivists’ Congressional Papers Roundtable.
In the book’s introduction, Miller addresses the importance of Congressional collections, reviews the historical
background of standards for Congressional collections, and
examines the challenges of these special and unwieldy collections. Since 1976, six national conferences and publications, as well as the Congressional Papers Roundtable itself,
have sought to improve all aspects of the management of
public policy papers. A section on “A Model Congressional
Collections Repository” describes the particular collection
development, outreach, and administrative resources (staff,
budget, facilities) necessary for a repository to successfully
manage these materials. Miller goes on to discuss the
details of administering, transferring, processing, and promoting a Congressional collection in subsequent chapters.
These explain practical strategies and step-by-step decision-making processes, including for such challenges as
electronic records.
Formerly a lone arranger in an academic archives, I am
somewhat new to political papers. Although the State
Library of Massachusetts does not collect Congressional
materials, we hold the personal papers of more than fifty
former legislators who have served in the Massachusetts
General Court. To what extent are the details of Miller’s
recommendations uniquely relevant to Congressional col-
•
April 2009
lections? There are several sections and strategies, such as
guidelines for file disposition, specifically directed to those
managing these collections. However, I have already found
this manual to be of significant value in general. An early
section on calculating costs, space, personnel, and budget
accompanied by an administrative checklist would be helpful to any archivist appraising and planning for the acquisition and processing of a large, complex collection.
Based on a concern for materials deemed sensitive
due to privacy or confidentiality in Congressional collections, Miller advocates a labor-intensive, conventional
approach to processing that acknowledges yet ultimately
ignores changes in arrangement and description recently
proposed by Greene and Meissner. Another weakness of
this volume is its limited discussion of outreach, especially
in light of the infrequent use of political papers by researchers. More attention to how to encourage more use by a
more diverse group of patrons using these collections
would have been helpful. Regardless of this minor criticism, archivists at a variety of repositories and working on
a variety of types of materials would find this book useful
on a day-to-day basis.
14
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
NEA By-Laws
Editor’s Note: The by-laws printed below are the ones in
force at the time the newsletter went to print. Members
voted on a proposed amendment on March 28, 2009. For
more information, readers should visit the NEA Web site
<www.newenglandarchivists.org>.
I. NAME
The name of this organization is NEW ENGLAND
ARCHIVISTS. It is incorporated as a nonprofit organization
under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
II. PURPOSES
New England Archivists is an organization established to
foster the preservation and use of records of enduring
value in New England, public and private, corporate and
individual, and to improve the management and the public
awareness and understanding of such records, by providing
pre-professional and continuing education in archival
theory and practice; a forum for the exchange of information
among individuals and institutions having responsibility
for records of enduring value in the region; and appropriate
means of communication and cooperation with other
archival organizations at the local, regional, and national
levels, and with individuals and groups representing allied
professions.
III. MEMBERSHIP
1) Membership is open, upon payment of dues, to any
individual or institution concerned with or interested in
accession, administration, organization, preservation, or
use of archival and manuscript material.
2) There are two categories of membership: Regular and
Institutional.
IV. OFFICERS AND GOVERNMENT
1) The officers shall be a president, president-elect who
shall serve as vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. The
terms of office of the president and president-elect shall be
one year, and of the secretary and treasurer, two years. No
officer shall serve more than two consecutive terms in the
same office. Each officer shall have duties usually associated
with the office.
2) Four representatives-at-large shall be elected, each for a
term of three years. No representative-at-large shall serve
more than two consecutive terms.
3) The president, with consent of a majority of the voting
members of the executive board, shall appoint a
Massachusetts resident as corporation clerk to serve at the
pleasure of the board. The president may also, with consent
of a majority of the voting members of the board, appoint
persons to undertake such other responsibilities as the
board may from time to time deem appropriate; the
president may, with such consent, designate such persons
as members of the executive board without vote.
4) The executive board shall consist of the president,
president-elect, secretary, treasurer, the representativesat-large, and the immediate past president, as voting
members; and as ex officio, non-voting members, the
corporation clerk and such other persons as shall have
been appointed to undertake responsibilities pursuant to
section 3 of this article, and shall have been so designated.
The executive board is empowered to conduct business
between annual meetings within general policies approved
by a majority of its voting members. All decisions shall be
by majority vote of those board members present. All
executive board meetings shall be open to members.
5) The president, with consent of a majority of the executive
board, shall appoint a program committee, and other
appropriate committees.
6) Officers and representatives-at-large shall be elected by
mail ballot of a majority of those members voting, from a
slate presented by the nominating committee. Nominees
must be members of New England Archivists. At least two
candidates shall be slated for each office. The slate shall
include the name of any member nominated by a petition
signed by not less than ten per cent of the membership and
received by the chair of the nominating committee not
later than sixty days in advance of the annual meeting. The
ballot shall contain space for write-in candidates for each
office. Ballots shall be mailed to members at least thirty
days in advance of the annual meeting. To be counted,
ballots must be returned to the chair of the nominating
committee postmarked not later than ten days in advance
of the annual meeting, and received by said chair not later
than the second day before the annual meeting.
15
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
7) In the event of a tie vote for any office, the successful
candidate shall be determined by re-balloting the membership
using the same mailing list as for the original ballot.
3) Annual dues for regular membership may be changed at
an annual meeting by a majority vote of the members
attending.
8) Any vacancy in the executive board shall be filled by the
board until the next election when candidates shall be
nominated to fill any unexpired term.
4) Life membership category shall be abolished as of
January 1, 1995. Individuals who have paid for a Life
Membership prior to September 1, 1994 will remain Life
Members and will receive full membership benefits.
V. MEETINGS
1) New England Archivists shall hold at least one meeting a
year to transact any business brought before the meeting
and to provide a program of general interest. This annual
meeting shall be held in the spring.
2) Special meetings may be called by the president,
with consent of a majority of the executive board, or at
written request of ten percent of the members addressed
to the executive board through the president or the
president-elect.
3) The membership shall be notified at least ninety days in
advance of an annual meeting and thirty days in advance of
a special meeting. Those members present and voting shall
constitute a quorum.
4) The executive board shall meet as necessary. Five voting
members, one of whom must be the president or vicepresident, shall constitute a quorum.
VI. FINANCES
1) The treasurer shall record the financial transactions of
New England Archivists so as to ensure that the membership
may have a sound basis for evaluating the management of
its funds; that the board may have adequate information on
which to plan the activities of the organization; and that its
financial practices conform to applicable accounting
standards. The treasurer shall maintain such records, for
accounting purposes, on a cash basis.
2) The president shall, with the approval of the executive
board, from time to time, but no less frequently than every
third year, appoint a professional accountant to examine
the financial records of the organization and to report his/
her findings to the board consistently with generally
recognized accounting practices.
5) The fiscal and membership years shall run from January
1 to December 31.
6) Institutional membership dues shall be $10.00 more
than the current membership rate. An institutional member
shall receive one (1) copy of each NEA publication which is
distributed to the general membership free of charge. It
shall be entitled to all other publications at the membership
rate and employees of the institution may attend workshops
and meetings at the member rate. The Institution is not
entitled to vote in the annual election nor shall it hold
elected or appointed office.
VII. DISPOSITION OF ASSETS AND RECORDS
1) As the records of the organization become non-current,
those of enduring value shall be donated to an archival
repository selected by the board to be preserved under a
formal agreement which shall address the needs of both
the officers and members of New England Archivists and
the general public for access to the records in accordance
with the normal policies and practices of the repository.
2) If it becomes necessary to dissolve the organization, its
assets shall be turned over to an historical or archival
organization selected by the board.
VIII. PARLIAMENTARY AUTHORITY
The latest edition of Sturgis’s Standard Code of
Parliamentary Procedure shall govern the proceedings of
the organization, except as otherwise provided by these
bylaws.
IX. AMENDMENTS
Amendments to these bylaws must be proposed in writing
and filed with the secretary at least sixty days prior to an
annual meeting. Copies shall be mailed to all members at
least thirty days in advance of the annual meeting. An
affirmative vote by a two-thirds majority of voting members
present shall constitute passage.
16
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
News and Notes
CONNECTICUT
Litchfield Historical Society Receives Grant
T
he Council on Library and Information Resources has
selected the Litchfield Historical Society to receive a
Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives
grant of $101,209 to create online finding aids for its archival holdings dating from 1776-1835. The Society was one of
15 organizations selected from 118 applicants. CLIR created the national project to identify and catalog hidden collections with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. During the next two years, the Society will
identify collections to include based upon research value;
national or state historical significance; usefulness to future
programming, research, and exhibition; and age and
condition of materials. Staff will create online finding aids
for the collections using the University of Illinois’ Archon,
an open source content management system which
allows for the creation of descriptive records compliant
with archival standards. For information about the
project, or the Society’s collections, please contact Linda
Hocking, Curator of Library & Archives, at <archivist@
litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org> or 860-567-4501.
available to researchers through the HOLLIS catalog.
The Center also acquired the collection of David
Hunter Hubel, one of the founding faculty members of the
HMS Department of Neurobiology. The Department, established in 1966 with Stephen W. Kuffler as Chair, was the
first of its kind. The intent was to bring together members
of different disciplines--physiologists, biochemists, and
anatomists-- in order to understand the principles governing communication between cells in the nervous system.
This interdisciplinary approach was revolutionary at the
time, and the interdisciplinary theme has continued to permeate the evolution of the field of neuroscience ever since.
The founding faculty and their students posed questions
and made discoveries that helped define the field of modern neurobiology. Hubel, now the John Franklin Enders
Professor of Neurobiology, Emeritus, won the Nobel prize
in physiology or medicine in 1981, shared with Torsten
Weisel and Roger W. Sperry, “for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system.” Conducted
at Harvard Medical School, Hubel and Weisel’s work led to
a greater understanding of the brain’s physiology and function. Hubel initiated his collection at the Center with the
gift of his teaching materials, research data, and photographs (1953-2003). Leder’s codon notebooks and selections from the Hubel collection will be on display in the
Countway Library through August 2009 in the exhibit
“New Treasures: Recent Acquisitions at the Center for the
History of Medicine.”
MASSACHUSETTS
Center for the History of Medicine Receives
Philip Leder ‘Codon’ Notebooks and David H.
Hubel Papers
T
he Center for the History of Medicine recently acquired
several collections of personal and professional records
from Harvard Medical School faculty, including three laboratory notebooks created by geneticist Philip Leder (1934- )
while he was a postdoctoral researcher working with
Marshall W. Nirenberg (1927- ). Leder and Nirenberg
developed an experiment in 1964 to allow the mapping of
tri-nucleotide sequences, or codons, with amino acids, and
help to decipher the genetic code. Leder later received the
prestigious Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
for his studies of the genetic basis of antibody diversity and
the role of genetic rearrangement in carcinogenesis. The
notebooks have been fully digitized and are now freely
Center for the History of Medicine at the
Countway Library awarded $217,000 from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for
“Foundations of Public Health Policy”
Initiative (December 2008)
T
he Center for the History of Medicine is pleased to
announce that it was awarded a Council on Library
and Information Resources grant for “Foundations of
Public Health Policy,” a project that will enable, for the first
time, research in the manuscript collections of four influential leaders in public health: Leona Baumgartner, Alan
Macy Butler, Howard Hiatt, and David Rutstein. The project was one of 15 selected from 118 applications submitted
to the Council’s “Hidden Collections” program, an initiative by the Mellon Foundation to increase access to critical
historical resources currently unavailable to historical
17
Volume 36, Number 2
research. The full press release and images can be found
online at <www.countway.harvard.edu/lenya/countway/
live/menuNavigation/historicalResources/chmPrograms/
PublicHealth.html>
Suffolk University Launches SMART Online
Catalog
T
he Suffolk University Archives, located at Suffolk
University in Boston, is happy to announce the launch
of a new online catalog. The Suffolk/Moakley Archives
Research Tool, or SMART, employs Rediscovery Software’s
collection management software to connect researchers to
our collections. Collections available through SMART
include: the Congressman Joe Moakley Papers, the records
of Suffolk University, the personal papers of University
founder Gleason L. Archer and two oral history projects,
the Suffolk University and John Joseph Moakley Oral
History Projects. Through SMART researchers have access
to finding aids, oral history transcripts, digitized images,
digitized audio and video, narrative descriptions and lists
of folders and items. More information is available at
<www.suffolk.edu/archive/smart>.
•
April 2009
Massachusetts State Archives Announces
Workshops and Lectures
T
he Massachusetts State Archives has begun offering
monthly workshops on a variety of topics. Recent
workshops include court records, military records, and
advanced genealogy. Upcoming workshops are:
• Wednesday, April 15th – Introductory Genealogy:
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
• Wednesday, May 20th – Introductory Genealogy:
10:00 AM – noon.
• Saturday, June 13th – Preservation and Organization
of Family Records. Time: TBA.
All are workshops are held at the Massachusetts
Archives and are free and open to the public. Reservations
are required, and can be obtained by calling the Archives at
617-727-2816. The Archives is open to the public Monday
- Friday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, and the second and fourth
Saturday of the month 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM. Beginning in
April and running throughout the summer, the Archives
will remain open until 8:00 PM on the third Wednesday of
every month. We have recently increased our efforts to
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Ste. 210
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Phone: (800) 366-1390
Email: [email protected]
Internet: www.cuadra.com
18
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
provide outreach to the public by bringing our workshops
and lectures to libraries across the state. If you work at
a library, historical society, or other institution that would
be interested in having an archivist from the State
Archives come out for a visit, let us know. We can be
reached at 617-727-2816 or <[email protected]>.
State Library of Massachusetts Collections
on Legislators
T
he State Library of Massachusetts Special Collections
department holds records related to Massachusetts
history, government, and politics including the personal
papers of former Massachusetts legislators. With a new,
minimal approach to processing, several legislative papers
collections have recently been processed and are now open
for research. These include the collections of the following
legislators: Edward Kirby (a Republican from Plymouth),
Paul Demakis (a Democrat from Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood), George Rogers (a Democrat from New Bedford),
Andrew Natsios (a Republican from Holliston), and Patricia
Walrath (a Democrat from Stow). The collections include
material relating to a wide array of topics of public concern
including indoor air pollution, abortion rights and buffer
zones for abortion clinics, Massachusetts turnpike air
rights, domestic partnership (gay rights), Wampanoag
casino, public education (including school construction,
enrichment programs, and standardized testing), elderly
affairs, home rule, taxation limitation, victims’ rights, environmental issues related to hazardous waste, budgetary
issues, public safety, and constituent issues. Collections
date from 1970 to 2004. Researchers interested in seeing a
guide to any of the collections should contact Special
Collections staff at 617-727-2595 or <Special.Collections@
state.ma.us>. Staff are working on posting finding aids for
these and other collections on the State Library’s new Web
site. The collections are open for research Monday-Friday
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the State Library of Massachusetts
Special Collections department, State House Room 55,
Boston, Massachusetts. For more information about the
State Library of Massachusetts Special Collections, see
<www.mass.gov/lib/>.
Visit the NEA online at:
<www.newenglandarchivists.org>
Tufts Announces Online Exhibit on the Life
and Work of Edward R. Murrow
T
he Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts University
is pleased to announce the launching of its online
archives exhibit, The Life and Work of Edward R. Murrow;
<http://dca.lib.tufts.edu/features/murrow/exhibit/
index.html>.
The exhibit’s eight historical essays trace Murrow’s
life and work and showcase material from the Edward R.
Murrow’s papers at Tufts University. The exhibit was
featured in The Scout Report for the week of February 6,
2009. <http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/ScoutReport/2009/
scout-090206-geninterest.php#1>.
Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) is best known as a CBS
broadcaster and producer during the formative years of U.S.
radio and television news programs from the 1930s to the
1950s, when radio still dominated the airwaves although
television was beginning to make its indelible mark,
particularly in the U.S. Over the decades, numerous
publications have portrayed Murrow as one of the architects
of U.S. broadcast news, but in the political climate of recent
years, he is increasingly viewed as a defender of rights
against McCarthy-type witch hunts. The Life and Work of
Edward R. Murrow is an online exhibit featuring Murrow’s
career from his student days to his work for USIA. Additional
essays focus on his private life, on the accomplishments of
his wife Janet Brewster Murrow, and on the ‘Murrow Boys,’
the war correspondents who produced many of the hallmark
World War II broadcasts. Using photographs, artifacts, and
documents from the Edward R. Murrow Papers at the
Digital Collections and Archives at Tufts University, the
exhibit describes known and lesser-known aspects of
Murrow’s work and life, placing them in the political and
historical context of his career.
The Edward R. Murrow Papers, ca 1913-1985, consist of
approximately 55 linear feet of documents, over 320
photographs, about 1,700 books, memorabilia as well as
phonographs, and film and audio-tape reels of various
formats. Dating largely from 1934 to 1965, the material
includes correspondence, personal materials, work and
activities-related files, audiovisual materials, memorabilia,
books, and tributes to Murrow upon his death. The papers
enable patrons to research Murrow’s career at the
International Institute of Education, at CBS, and at the
19
Volume 36, Number 2
USIA and to trace major developments in the history of
broadcasting at CBS and in the U.S.
DCA is also proud to announce the successful launch
of the DCA blog site at <http://blogs.uit.tufts.edu/
digitalcollectionsandarchives/>. Each week a new entry
highlighting Tufts’ holdings and events is posted.
Editors Note: For more information about the Murrow
exhibit, turn to Internet Tidbits on page 15.
Northeastern University Makes Freedom
House Photographs Available Online
A
digital resource of more than 2400 images, “Roxbury
People, Places and Events, 1950-1975,” is now available
online at: <www.lib.neu.edu/freedomhouse>. Freedom
House was founded in 1949 by social workers Otto P. and
Muriel S. Snowden. The initial goal of Freedom House was
to centralize community activism in the fight for neighborhood improvement, good schools, and harmony among
racial, ethnic, and religious groups in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Freedom House went on to play critical roles in urban
renewal in Roxbury and in the desegregation of the Boston
Public Schools. A guide to the entire Freedom House
Collection may be viewed at <www.library.neu.edu/archives/
collect/findaids/m16find.htm>. The digitization of the
images was made possible in part through a grant from the
federal Institute of Museum and Library Services through
the Library Services and Technology Act administered by
the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.
Records of the Bisexual Resource Center
Available for Research
T
he historical records of the Bisexual Resource Center
are now open for research. A guide to the collection is
available online at: <www.library.neu.edu/archives/collect/findaids/m144findprint.htm>
The collection contains records generated by the BRC
and materials collected for the organization’s in-house
resource library. The 11.5 linear feet of material dates from
1983-2002 and includes administrative materials, newsletters and magazines, scholarly papers, articles from the
LGBT and mainstream media, conference packets, and
•
April 2009
audiovisual materials. A highlight of this collection is the
thorough documentation of the nationwide preparation
for, participation in, and response to the 1993 March on
Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Equal Rights.
The Bisexual Resource Center collection is open
for research Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., in
the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and
Special Collections Department, 92 Snell Library,
Boston, Massachusetts. For a list of all of the Department’s
special collections, see: <www.library.neu.edu/archives/
collections/manuscript_collections>.
VERMONT
U.V.M.’s Consuelo Northrop Bailey Papers
Open for Research
S
pecial Collections at the University of Vermont has
recently completed processing the personal and professional papers of Consuelo Northrop Bailey (1899-1976), a
prominent legal and political figure in Vermont from the
1920s to the 1970s. Bailey’s long career included service as
a Prohibition-era state’s attorney and several terms in the
state legislature. She was the first woman lieutenant governor in the United States and the first Vermont woman
admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Bailey
also served ten terms (1936-1973) on the Republican
National Committee.
The Bailey collection consists of 109 linear feet of materials that document her political career. The correspondents
include many of the most influential political figures in
Vermont from the 1930s to the 1970s. This collection is a
great source for the study of Bailey’s personal political campaigns as well as many state and national Republican campaigns. The collection also includes personal and family
papers that document Bailey’s personal life as well as the
lives of family members and friends. The Northrop Family
papers are a particularly wonderful record of Vermont family and farm life throughout most of the twentieth century.
The collection was donated by Bailey’s younger sister,
Frederika Northrop Sargent, who also generously provided
funds to arrange and describe it. The finding aid for the
Consuelo Northrop Bailey Papers is available at <http://cdi.
uvm.edu/findingaids/collection/baileyconsuelo.ead.xml>.
20
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
U.V.M. Announces New Digital Collection of
Family Letters
T
hanks to a generous gift from Frederika Northrop
Sargent, a new collection of nineteenth-century family
correspondence is available through the University of
Vermont’s Center for Digital Initiatives <http://cdi.uvm.
edu/collections/index.xql>.
The letters were collected by Vermonter Ruth Colton
Fletcher (1810-1903) and are part of the Consuelo Northrop
Bailey Papers. Many of the letters are from family members who moved west to New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa and Kansas and sent reports full of interesting details
about the people, economy, institutions, and activities to
family back home. The correspondents recount the hard
work they faced as they created and managed farms in new
states and territories and often share meticulous lists of the
prices of land, grains, stock, and groceries. Writers document the burdens of sickness and death that their families
endured and often provide accounts of their medical treatments. Enos Fletcher and Charles Hogan write about their
military experience during the Civil War, and other correspondents refer to the war and its effects on their communities. In one letter, Ruth’s son Andrew describes the 1864
Confederate raid on the banks in the border town of St.
Albans, where he was working.
The digital collection includes images of 148 letters,
encoded and searchable transcriptions of the letters, and a
collection overview with a list of the correspondents and
their relationships.
OUTSIDE NEW ENGLAND
NAGARA Launches Online Document
Library Where Users May Share Archives
Publications
T
he National Association of Government Archives and
Records Administrators has launched an online
document library which allows users to share archives and
records management publications. Subject categories
include: accessibility, advocacy, electronic records, disaster
preparedness, facilities, files management, grants, historical records, inactive records, local government records,
microfilm, preservation, legal issues, retention, scanning &
digitization, security, storage, training, and miscellaneous.
Located at <www.NAGARAresources.org>, the library
currently houses nearly 300 documents and expands in
content almost daily. As content grows, site administrators
will add new subject categories and/or subdivide
existing categories.
No registration is required to download documents,
however users who wish to upload documents must be
registered. That can be accomplished by selecting “Add
Documents” in the toolbar and clicking on “Registration.”
Follow the steps outlined. Only documents in the public
domain may be uploaded on this site, or copyrighted documents posted by the owner of the copyright.
The site was built in partial response to a 2008
recommendation of the Council of State Archivists’ “Closest
to Home” Task Force on Archival Programs for Local
Governments to “develop a coordinated plan for a portal
to provide access to web-based resources on local
government archives,” but as content expanded the site
has proven to be of interest to archivists from other fields
as well.
21
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
22
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Around ajd Abou s
History Comes to Me in Boxes:
The Story of the Gillette Corporate Archive
Dory Codington: Gillette Archivist 2006 - 2008
[email protected]
T
he nature of history: The artifacts and ephemera of The Gillette Company. The Gillette Company collected
things like a Yankee grandpa. The Company saved everything, but spending extra money to care for it was an
extravagance. So while Coca-Cola built the World of Coke, Budweiser showed off its Clydesdales, IBM kept a
growing record of every product it ever made, and breweries around the world showed off their old ads and gave visitors
a sip, Gillette saved everything in factory basements, back offices, Iron Mountain, and a warehouse in Everett, MA.
When Procter & Gamble, which maintains a heritage
space and archives that is accessible to sales staff, official
visitors, and company employees, bought Gillette in 2005,
the head archivist wanted to know what was in the various
basements, warehouses and storage facilities that housed
Gillette’s collection of boxed materials. I was hired as an
independent contractor to discover what was in the boxes
and report back to P&G. Along the way, the “stuff” was to
be processed into separate record groups and entered into
a database. Not only was I expected to process the records
of corporate public relations’ various heads, but I was also
expected to reconstruct and reassemble records that several authors and researchers had pulled apart and put back
together as best as they were able.
The project began with a list of boxes and their potential contents, all deposited on the 44th floor of the
Prudential Tower which had become excess space as
Gillette downsized following its acquisition by Proctor &
Gamble. Alone in a series of back offices and empty
cubicles, I had plenty of time to ponder the historical significance of this amorphous collection. So did the occasional visitor; once, as I sat among boxes that were half
empty, surrounded by razors and personal care products
trying to make sense of the collection, one of those rare
visitors to the archive exclaimed: “There is so much history here!”
The real problem with so much unprocessed material
is not the history that is here, but the history that is missed.
No researcher could walk in and find what he was looking
for, no answers could reveal themselves. Snippets of
Gillette’s history and of Gillette’s impact on American and
world history could be gleaned, but the whole story was
difficult to discern from the unprocessed collection. It was
tempting to tell visitors to this collection, therefore, that
“stuff” is not history, if only because it is unprocessed. On
the other hand, a good part of American history is about
“stuff” because this is a nation built on its manufactured
products and the innovation behind them. A good part of
the history of an American manufacturer such as Gillette is
bound up in the “stuff” it has made over the past 107 years:
millions of razors, miles and miles of razor blades, and a
steady stream of personal grooming products. The “stuff”
bought in drugstores and supermarkets and stashed on
bathroom sink counters, behind bathroom mirrors, and on
dressers, tells millions of personal stories, and the story—
many stories, actually—of their manufacturer.
In his introduction to the book about the Henry Ford
Museum of Deerfield, Michigan, Harold K. Skramstad of
the Edison Institute calls the industrial material held there
the “objects of American history” and I suppose that is
what these boxes of personal grooming products contain:
the products of Gillette history. Certainly every one of
these boxes and tubes and bottles and razors is the product
of someone’s labor and the workers’ stories form a good
part of the Gillette’s history.
Michel Foucault proposed that history is, metaphorically, the table on which the objects and the stories sit—
that history is created when things interact on that metaphoric table. Using that as a starting point I realized that
the history of The Gillette Company was created, or at
least re-created, when Safety Razors, Dippity Doo jars,
research notes, trademark violation lawsuits, and advertisements met, partly on my fold-up table and mostly on
the floor. My random visitor wasn’t wrong—there was
indeed a lot of history on the 44th floor. It had come in
more than 600 boxes and it needed to be processed.
23
Volume 36, Number 2
Processing
I was hired for this unusual archive job right out of
library school, but had some years as a history teacher, historical re-enactor, desk librarian, and an academic historian behind me. This was a new experience nonetheless—
opening numbered boxes whose numbers corresponded to
a list of what might be in them, sorting the material to find
duplicates and irrelevancies, and finally processing the
stuff into thirteen meaningful record groups that had been
provided by the project’s contractor.
Three months into the processing in November of
2006, the collection, including the remaining 70 unprocessed boxes from the initial accession and the new accessions that were being delivered to the archive almost daily,
was moved from the 44th to the 40th floor. The new room
had a lot of space. It had housed the entire Gillette Travel
and Events Department, which had shrunk considerably
after the Proctor & Gamble acquisition and moved into
smaller space down the hall. The new archive was a single
large room with a southeasterly view of Boston.
I set up tables, had movers put the unopened boxes in
neat rows and the sorted ones along the wall, and set to
work. The processing of this chaos involved piling the contents of a box onto the desk and working through it until
the desk was cleared off, and then beginning the process
again. Often, of course, the floor was the only space large
enough to handle the sorting. Through one of the strange
quirks of archival fate, I was usually on the floor when
visitors came by.
The title of the project, stamped onto every folder and
printed on my time sheet, is the Gillette Corporate Archives,
but it isn’t actually a corporate archive. There are several
reasons for this. First, Gillette is no longer a corporation; it
is a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, a division called “global
grooming,” as well as a brand. But although there is no longer an independent company known as Gillette, there was
one. And within the archive are the corporate papers, ads,
audits, letters, lawsuits, products, press releases, and photographs of independent Gillette’s people, places and things.
But the other reason that it is not a corporate archive is that
no material in the archive is or was handed over by the
records manager. This material was saved by Corporate
Public Relations, which collected press releases and newspaper clippings, and by patent and trademark lawyers who
saved products, ads and samples as proof of Gillette’s innova-
•
April 2009
tion and manufacture dates in case of future lawsuits. With
the addition of the trademark library, salvaged from destruction after the entire department quit in the fall of 2005, and
the discovery of the proxy battle and Revlon-Coniston takeover attempts and lawsuits of the 1980s, the legal files are the
most complete part of the collection. The ads are extensive,
but they still show gaps extending over many years, with
salesmen’s notebook sheets filling in for product pictures.
Accessions since the archive was established fill in many of
these gaps extensively and include sales, planning, and marketing materials.
Other than those few parts, the collection is unplanned.
The collection includes, for example, photographs and
sketches of King C. Gillette and his friends and fellow
investors taken in 1906, but for the next 60 years there are
no photographs or sketches of the successor managers and
directors. There are also papers generated by lawsuits in
which Gillette protected various trademarks, but probably
not all of them. The papers suffice, in most instances, to
link a lawsuit to a particular trademark and identify the
issues that the suit raised; however, it is generally difficult
to confirm that the papers are complete, and often the
papers in the collection lack a final decision or settlement
agreement and, therefore, do not show how the lawsuit in
question was resolved, or even whether Gillette’s efforts to
protect a claimed trademark were successful.
Other holes in the company narrative healed, sometimes
with the help of materials from different record groups.
Over time the database would link a newsletter, a newspaper, magazine article or a press release. Still, there was no
substitute for an informed archivist who could correlate
what appeared at first (even to the database) to be disparate
quantities of information. The urgency to retain company
history eased once the database became more complete, but
even then, the database never spent a lunch hour reading a
company newsletter or annual report, and I had.
24
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Reference
I was hired to process the material in the boxes, but
almost as soon as my computer was set up in August 2006
I started receiving regular reference requests. The first one
was the P&G archivist himself, who needed the history of
the Gillette Company in Europe. I didn’t notice it at the
time, but these requests transformed a processing job into
the unofficial position of company archivist. Soon reference questions were coming from all directions. For
instance, an attorney who was defending P&G against an
asbestos-related products liability suit needed a list of all
Gillette-made hair dryers from the 1970s. Almost simultaneously, the District Attorney of Los Angeles County
needed me to give testimony about the creation date of a
Right Guard can shown in a photograph. I wanted to ask
the DA why he needed information about a 47-year-old can
of deodorant but, sadly, I could not.
How to Tell a Razor
In most bathrooms, blades and razors, or modern
shaving-cartridge systems, are the artifacts of daily life. I
remember my grandfather’s heavy rhodium safety razor
and my dad’s Super Speed, and it was indeed fun to meet
them again in the archive. However, to the company that
makes nearly 80% of the blades, razors, handles and cartridges sold worldwide, these are products, not artifacts.
They were copied and counterfeited in battles for store
shelf space and perhaps most importantly, they were patented, trademarked and protected in some of the most
famous lawsuits of the century. These products were also
promoted aggressively by advertising and sales teams that
the trade regarded as top-notch in terms of devotion and
enthusiasm. Even if there was no one left to help me identify the products they had promoted, I owed it to them to
get nothing wrong.
With the enormous number of retirees leaving Gillette
while I worked there, the newcomers from both P&G and
Gillette wanted to know about the company’s history.
There were few people left in the company to ask. It helped
that I had been a high school history teacher; on top of
continuing to process the collection, I created posters of
historic ads and displays of historical blades and razors to
answer many of these questions. One question asked many
times, often from overseas P&G offices, was “how Gillette
advertising influenced and was influenced by world affairs.”
Unable or unwilling to make a trip to America, a Swedish
newspaper asked me to find advertisements demonstrating
Gillette’s creation of the ideal of manliness over the course
of the twentieth century. My first reaction was that people
should do their own research, but then I found an ad
explaining that “826 railroad men preferred the Gillette
Safety Razor.” I sent a copy to the Swedish newspaper.
Shave Prep
I ordered custom boxes to house the razors: they are
the standard 12” x 12” boxes but with a height of only three
inches because for the first seventy years of the company’s
history (from the 1901 introduction of the Gillette Safety
Razor until the 1972 Trac II and the cartridge systems that
followed), safety razors were heavy. Too many in a box
make the box heavy, and with so many variations, the clutter makes it difficult to date them as well. Each acid-free,
lignin- free cardboard box was lined with a full sheet of
Dupont Intercept fabric to slow down the inevitable oxidation of the metals. The lighter blades and blade boxes were
stored in 12” x 12” x 6” boxes, also with Intercept.
But processing didn’t end just because I had a new role
as the company historian and the best view and most
expensive archive per-square-foot in the world. Soon there
was an accession of an additional 50 cubic feet of material
from the basement of Gillette, UK at Isleworth, which was
closing. This overseas collection included the auditors’
reports of the company’s European sales offices in the
1930s, unread and covered with coal dust. There were also
boxes and boxes of blades and razors, adding to the boxes
and boxes of blades and razors already on the 40th floor
that still needed sorting. And there was still nobody who
could tell me anything about them.
When I had the storage materials, it was time to date
every one of those blades and razors. To do this I located
dated ads, brochures and salesmen’s pages with good pic-
25
Volume 36, Number 2
tures of the historical products. I made a notebook of the
images with notes. As I worked with these paper depictions of the products, I created a product name and date
timeline in Excel. These were enhanced with data from
newspapers, newsletters, and occasionally lawsuits as I
came across them.
Many of the razors were in numbered bags. I also
found a notebook with the numbers listed, along with reference notes. This work was prepared by a different archive
company in the 1990s that had emptied and processed the
drawers of the trademark department’s razor library.
Unfortunately, the only dates on the bags were the dates of
accession, with an accession number that had nothing to do
with production dates. Cross-referencing these numbers
with the notebook only gave me a drawer number (1-40)
and the year 1991— not at all helpful in identifying a razor
that was manufactured before 1910.
Shaving
I emptied the labeled bags and saved them. Then I
sorted the razors as to type, with teeth, without teeth,
opening from the top with gears, unscrewing three different ways. Then using the ads and my product list, which
included information such as “the first razor without
teeth,” I began to put the razors in bags with their product
name and date of manufacture. Eventually, I had 40 small
boxes with one thousand neatly arranged and labeled
safety razors, larger boxes with dividers filled with dated
and labeled blades, and a growing number of cubic-foot
boxes with cartridge systems.
I began a similar process for archiving the shaving
creams, deodorants, shampoos and permanent wave solutions, aftershaves and body wash, but these were much easier to differentiate. The bottles and tubes containing these
products were stored on the opposite side of the room to
minimize chemical reactions with other materials in the
archive. There was a very real concern, nonetheless, that
out-gassing from hair products and the evaporation of alcohol from the aftershaves would adversely affect the razor
metal. My training as an historian and archivist had not prepared me to address issues of chemical interaction among
product components or hazardous material and safety issues
involved in product storage, but the issue was particularly
critical, not only in terms of protecting the collection from
itself but in the context of archiving a potentially volatile
collection on the 40th floor of a large office tower.
•
April 2009
Aftershave
Once the products were organized, I returned to processing the paper files. These were sorted into 13 record
groups, covering the corporate and industrial life of the
company. The project manager once referred to the many
razors spread out on the archive floor as “artifacts,” but
that unduly minimizes their importance to the company
and to the collection. The razors were central to the company’s operations and history and they were therefore the
only reason the materials for the other 12 record groups
even existed.
Gillette’s success was based upon the quality of its
products and to the success of its marketing campaigns,
many of which were sports-related, from the sponsorship
of radio broadcasts of Friday night boxing in the 1930s and
1940s to televised baseball and football games starting in
the early 1950s and continuing today, with expansion into
other sporting events. Decades of sports-based marketing
has generated a growing collection of collectible items,
among them mouse pads, key chains, golf visors, NASCAR
toys and historical stationery samples. I placed these into a
separate record group, along with corporate stationery and
commemorative toys as artifacts.
Finally, each paper file was stored with its record
group, and its information was entered into an Access
Database. We set Access to automatically generate a number, which I wrote on the top right of each paper file.
Eventually, the processed boxes were moved off the
floor onto secured shelving, so only unprocessed materials
filled the empty floor. By the time the processing project
was completed, even the new accessions were processed
and nearly everything had been entered into Access. There
remains much to do if the collection is to become a fullyfunctioning corporate resource, not only in terms of
preserving corporate history but also for responding to
daily information requests, whether from in-house counsel
or product-development and marketing teams. These
archiving tasks require new projects and, thus, new corporate commitments to information management and access.
However, I left with the knowledge that Gillette’s history,
including its products, advertising and even its litigation,
was now organized and findable. What better foundation
can an archivist leave behind?
26
Volume 36, Number 2
•
April 2009
Invitations for Award
Nominations
Archival Advocacy Award
NEA grants the Archival Advocacy Award (AAA) to an individual or institution demonstrating extraordinary support
of New England archival programs and records, either
politically, financially or through public advocacy.
Criteria
The award may be given to any individual outside of the
archival profession, or any institution other than libraries
or archives. In selecting those who will receive the award,
special weight will be given to support that has had a broad
long-term effect and may include, but are not restricted to
the following types of support:
• sponsorship of successful political initiatives which
have directly aided archives;
• financial support of important archival programs;
• increasing public awareness and support for archival
issues.
Distinguished Service Award
NEA grants the New England Archivists Distinguished
Service Award (DSA) to individuals or institutions who are
dedicated to the promotion of NEA objectives and who
have made significant contributions to the profession, their
institution, NEA and/or the archival community in New
England. The award shall reflect the total experience of the
awardee(s) and is based upon knowledge, leadership, participation and achievements in the profession.
Criteria
In selecting those who will receive the award, special
weight will be given to archival activities that have had a
broad long-term effect and may include, but are not restricted to the following criteria:
• involvement and work in NEA;
• education, leadership, advocacy and/or scholarly
activities;
• impact of the nominee’s work on the regional archival
community.
The candidate’s contributions will be measured by their
broad distribution across all categories and/or an exceptional contribution in one particular area.
Procedures
Procedures
• Nominations should be submitted to: Kathryn Hammond
Baker, Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University,
10 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA, 02115.
• A nomination must include a letter detailing why the
nominator feels the candidate deserves the NEA AAA.
• Additional materials including, but not limited to a curriculum vitae (resume), publications, work products,
course outlines and evaluations, may be submitted but
are not required.
• Nominations should be submitted to: Kathryn Hammond
Baker, Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University,
10 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA, 02115.
• A nomination must include a letter detailing why the
nominator feels the candidate deserves the NEA DSA.
• Additional materials including, but not limited to a curriculum vitae (resume), publications, work products,
course outlines and evaluations, may be submitted but
are not required.
Nominations are due by May 15, 2009
Nominations are due by May 15, 2009
For more information about the Archival Advocacy Award,
please see http://www.newenglandarchivists.org/services/
awards/aa_award/index.html
For more information about the Distinguished Service
Award, please see http://www.newenglandarchivists.org/
services/awards/distinguished_award/index.html
27
Calendar
of Events
OBER
OCT
JU
LY
Volume 36, Number 2
APRIL
Y
AR
NU
JA
Press releases and other announcements should be sent to
Stephanie Schneider at <[email protected]>. Please provide the
date, time, place, and a brief description of the event and the name,
address, and telephone number of the person to be contacted
for information.
April 16-18, 2009. MARAC Spring Meeting, “Surveying
Archives: Wild and Wonderful,” Charleston, West
Virginia.
May 3-8, 2009. ICPSR Workshop. “Digital Preservation
Management: Short-Term Solutions for Long-Term
Problems” held at ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor. See <www.icpsr.umich.edu> for details.
May 7-8, 2009. SAA Workshop, “Understanding Photos:
Intro to Archival Principles and Practices.” Co-sponsored
by the Archivists Roundtable and the New York Public
Library. Held New York, NY. See <www.archivists.org>
for details.
May 15, 2009. Deadline to apply to take the Academy of
Certified Archivists archival certification exam; and to
apply for “You Pick Your Site” examination location. Visit
<www.certifiedarchivists.org> for details.
May 27-29, 2009. Digital Directions: Fundamentals of
Creating and Managing Digital Collections. Three day conference by NEDCC. San Diego, CA.
June 5, 2009. National Historical Publications and
Records Commission (NHPRC) grant application deadline
for Electronic Records and Processing Projects. For
detailed information see <www.archives.gov/nhprc/
annoucement/>.
June 14-26, 2009. 23rd Annual Western Archives Institute.
U.C. Berkeley in Berkeley, CA.
June 17-20, 2009. 50th Annual RBMS Preconference, “Seas
of Change: Navigating the Cultural and Institutional
Contexts of Special Collections.” Charlottesville, VA.
•
April 2009
June 19, 2009. SAA Workshop, “The Essentials of Digital
Repositories.” Co-sponsored by Michigan State University.
See <www.archivists.org> for details.
June 22, 2009. SAA Workshop, “An Introduction to
Archival Exhibitions.” Co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania
State University, Paterno. Held at University Park, PA.
July 19-25, 2009. 2nd Archives Leadership Institute held at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
August 11-16, 2009. Society of American Archivists Annual
Meeting, Austin. See <www.archivists.org> for details.
People
Emily R. Novak Gustainis was appointed Collections
Services Archivist at the Center for the History of Medicine
of the Countway Library. In her new role, Gustainis will
oversee the descriptive program for the Centers archival
and manuscript collections. Most recently, Gustainis served
as librarian/archivist for Historic New England, where she
worked on a wide variety of descriptive, reference, research,
and public access projects. Prior to that, she worked as a
photograph cataloger at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute, for a digital access project funded by the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation and as an archivist for the
Information and Archival Services Division of the Winthrop
Group, Inc., where she arranged and described collections
for a wide variety of corporate and nonprofit clients,
including the Architectural Research Institute (Beverly
Willis Papers Project), the United Nations, and WGBH. She
holds both an MLS and a BA in English Literature and
Teacher Education from the State University of New York
at Albany.
Non-profit Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Boston, Massachusetts 02205
Permit Number 56006
WPI Archives and Special Collections
Gordon Library
100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609
THIS SEASON IN NEW ENGLAND HISTORY
High Jump, Field Day 1914
The annual Field Day tradition began at Dana Hall in 1903 with each class competing in many forms of athletic
endeavors for a silver cup. This is the day when class spirit, enthusiasm, and loyalty to Dana held complete sway
from early morning to night. Class banners were hung from the porch of Dana Main and wholehearted cheers
and songs could be heard from the girls urging their classmates onto victory.
Courtesy of the Genevieve Upjohn Gilmore Photographic Collection, 1914 at the Dana Hall Archives, Dana Hall
School, Wellesley, Massachusetts.